Pat Stout, academic advisor, broadcasting

Pat Stout, academic advisor broadcasting, wrote an excellent editorial for the McDonough County Voice in December. Stout’s editorial is about the best and worst of marching band culture.  Here is the editorial as it appeared in the Voice.

Kindness and acceptance for students
Patrick Stout, column (#1018), December 6, 2011

“When I came here, I had no friends,” said a Western Illinois University student on Saturday. “After four years, I’m leaving as part of a family.”

Those words were uttered at the WIU Marching Leathernecks awards luncheon. Variations came in the farewell remarks of all the graduating seniors.

Some remembered their freshman days and told how, after accepting the invitation to join the band, they almost immediately received welcome e-mails from the leaders of the instrument section they’d be joining. Others told stories of older students who worked with them during their first August band camp, and who told them, “If you need any help during the school year, just let me know.”

The Marching Leathernecks hold a welcoming ceremony for each year’s new members. They hold a show closing ceremony after each home football game. The final ceremony allows each departing member to retire his or her uniform as they stand on Hanson Field.

Traditions are built and kept through consistent effort. The band director has a core cadre of graduate assistants and drum majors who enforce the traditions, supported by the section leaders.

The tradition of kindness and mutual support exhibited by the Marching Leathernecks stands in contrast to an ugly tradition revealed last week regarding the Marching 100 of Florida A&M University. There a student lost his life due to the behavior of a rogue group of students bent on maintaining hazing behaviors.

Robert Champion was a drum major with the Marching 100. They had tryouts at the end of marching band season and Champion was chosen head drum major for the 2012 season. He didn’t know that and died before he could find out.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department, according to CNN, said a group of band members punched Champion repeatedly. He later complained of shortness of breath, became ill, and then died.

The band director at Florida A&M said he tried for years to get rid of the hazing tradition. But because he didn’t, and Champion died on his watch, he has been fired. The university president has expelled five students, and an investigation continues at the state level.

Other band members, alumni, and parents have come forward: a trombone player who said she was beaten and kicked in 2007, a trumpet player in 1989 who was hit on the head and taunted with cruel songs until he had to leave school for awhile, and a former band member who told NBC News that he was paid to drop a lawsuit he filed against FAMU because of his brutal treatment.

Which school would you want your young musician to go to?

Nominees for College Art Association Board 2012, Charles Wright bottom, center.

From University Relations:

MACOMB, IL – Charles A. Wright, chair of Western Illinois University’s Department of Art, has been named a candidate for the College Art Association’s (CAA) Board of Directors. He is joined on the ballot by a small contingency of academics from institutions including Harvard and the Art Institute of Chicago.

A position on the organization’s Board of Directors provides an opportunity to enhance the group’s inner workings from its financial stability to its strategic direction. The board is also responsible for setting the policy which governs all CAA activities, including publishing, the annual conference, awards and fellowships, advocacy and committee procedures.

Wright first joined the CAA as a graduate student working toward his MFA in sculpture from Washington University in St. Louis (MO). He describes the organization as “a priceless resource.”

Throughout the years, he has held various positions in the CAA, including serving for the past three years as chair of the CAA’s Professional Practices Committee (PPC). The PCC responds to members’ concerns, as well as helps the Board of Directors develop standards and guidelines. Wright said his service as PPC chair has given him opportunities to learn how universities throughout the nation address critical workplace issues for university art professors.

Wright’s platform emphasizes the importance of the visual arts in the lives of individuals and communities. The voting is currently in session, and will conclude at 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24. Voting is open to all CAA members with a valid member ID.

Wright was named chair of WIU’s art department in July 2007. He had served as chair of the Department of Art at Coastal Carolina University, guiding the art program there through national accreditation, a feat which he repeated for WIU upon his arrival in Macomb. His work, comprised mostly of large-scale sculptures in such media as wood, steel, Plexiglas, stone, and various combinations, can be found in private and public collections in both the Midwest and on the East Coast.

For more information about the College Art Association, visit collegeart.org.

James Romig, Associate Professor, School of Music, Western Illinois University

Following up his prestigious Aaron Copland House residency in summer 2011, James Romig, Associate Professor School of Music, will be visiting the South Rim of the Grand Canyon as an artist-in-residence for three weeks in June, 2012.  Congratulations James!

Romig was selected from among 100 highly qualified artists.  Artists include photographers, visual artists, composers, filmmakers, musicians and more.

Grand Canyon’s artist-in-residence program welcomes not only artists who work in the long-honored traditions of representational landscape photography and painting, but also encourages the involvement of artists working in new or experimental mediums, and whose art is in direct advocacy of the Park’s environmental, cultural and historical values.

While in-residence, the South Rim artists have the opportunity to live in the historic upstairs apartment of the Verkamp’s Visitor Center, perched on the rim. The North Rim artist space is in an historic and rustic two-room cabin in the cool shade of the Ponderosa pines.

A panel of professional artists and administrators along with National Park Service representatives selected this year’s artists from a pool of 98 applicants on the South Rim, and 70 applicants on the North Rim.

For more information about this year’s South Rim Artist in Residence–SR AiR.

For information about the artists.

PELLI CLARKE PELLI ARCHITECTS Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects designed the new Western Illinois University Performing Arts Center, shown here in a rendering. Located on the Macomb, Ill. campus, the WIU Performing Arts Center comprises two brick-clad wings connected by a two-story, glass-walled gallery. The building will contain a 250-seat theater with thrust stage, a 150-seat studio theater and a 1,400-seat proscenium theater. Construction will begin in 2013. A ceremonial groundbreaking took place Tuesday. (PRNewsFoto/Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects) MACOMB, IL UNITED STATES

Thanks to theatre and dance chair David Patrick for forwarding a link to an article on PRNewswire about the WIU PAC.

Construction to Start on Pelli Clarke Pelli Theatre at Western Illinois University

MACOMB, Ill., April 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — A new performing arts center by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects is scheduled to begin construction at Western Illinois University. Officials celebrated a ceremonial groundbreaking for the WIU Performing Arts Center on the Macomb campus Tuesday.

Read more.

The press releases includes a fascinating slide show of national and international Pelli Clarke Pelli buildings and designs.  Western Illinois University is in some very impressive company.

One correction to the PRNewswire press release.  Construction will begin in 2013 not 2012 as was stated in the press release.

Patrick Stufflebeam, BA 1999, Communication, Music minor

Patrick Stufflebeam, BA communication, minor music 1999, has been elected to partnership in HeplerBroom LLC, Edwardsville, IL office.

Patrick Stufflebeam is a litigation attorney in the areas of products and premises liability with a special emphasis on toxic tort defense, including asbestos, manganese and silica.

Stufflebeam is admitted to practice in Missouri, Illinois, the U.S. District Court of Southern Illinois, Asbestos MDL, U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Stufflebeam is a member of the Illinois Association Defense Trial Counsel, Board of Directors, Madison County Bar Association, and the Defense Research Institute.

He graduated from Saint Louis University School of Law in 2002. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Western Illinois University in 1999, magna cum laude.

HeplerBroom has 80 attorneys and offices in St. Louis, Edwardsville, Springfield and Chicago. The firm traces its history to 1894.

Congratulations to Patrick Stufflebeam.  A double COFAC grad!

Tori Breedlove, dance minor/psychology major, junior, Rushville, IL

Congratulations to dance minor Tori Breedlove for coming up with a selfless idea, for organizing a way to make it happen, and for thinking of others.

Tori Breedlove, a senior psychology major and dance minor, from Rushville, planned and ran a dance-a-thon Jan. 28, at the McDonough County 4-H Center. The event raised $2,830 for the Andrea Rizzo Foundation.

“We had approximately 70 people come out and go throughout the eight hours to show their support by dancing for a few hours and then trading with their team members,” Breedlove said. “I felt the dance-a-thon was a success and I was really grateful for the amount of money raised to help these beautiful children.”

The event raised money for “Drea’s Dream,” a non-profit dance therapy organization within the foundation that helps children with cancer and special needs. The local dance-a-thon raised money through both dancing and from WIU theatre professors teaching dance classes for $5 each.

Read more at the University Relations press release.

The St. Louis based Kevin Kline awards were announced Monday, January 30, and two WIU students are among the nominees.  Brooke Edwards, MFA directing student, and James Bleecker, undergraduate BFA student, are both nominees.  WIU/COFAC is so proud of these students and thrilled that their excellent work is being recognized.

Danny and the Deep Blue Sea poster

Brooke is a second year MFA directing student from St. Louis.  Brooke was nominated for her role as Roberta in the two person play Danny and the Deep Blue Sea by John Patrick Shanley. The production was directed by WIU faculty member Ray Gabica.  Danny was a Non-Prophet Theatre production.

Thrill Me poster

James Bleecker was nominated for his portrayal of Nathan Leopold in the Max and Louie Production of Thrill Me by Stephen Dolginoff. Thrill Me was reprised in St. Louis last summer from a WIU 2010-11 studio production that was directed by Brooke Edwards. The production also featured Blake Berry Davy, senior, Morris, IL as Richard Loeb; Cynthia Lohrman, MFA costume design; Will James Stacey, MFA student lighting design, Franklin TN; John Blunk, senior, Aurora, IL; and Tj Nicol, junior, River Grove, IL. Lynn Thompson, Associate Professor School of Music, was the musical director for the show.

The awards are named for Kevin Kline, the Tony- and Oscar-winning actor who grew up in Clayton. Honoring excellence in St. Louis professional theater, they are presented by the Professional Theatre Council of St. Louis. The winners will be announced at a gala awards ceremony at the Loretto-Hilton Center on April 2.

Read more.

Shawn Spangler, pot on the cover of Ceramics Monthly

Shawn Spangler, ceramics faculty, made the cover of the January issue of Ceramics Monthly.  The issue includes an article titled “Shawn Spangler: Variations on Simplicity.”

Ceramics Monthly is the “… the world’s largest ceramics magazine, Ceramics Monthly serves a wide variety of readers, including professionals artists, educators, students and enthusiasts”

Check out Ceramic Monthly on Facebook.  Shawn’s pot is the current profile picture of the Ceramics Monthly Facebook account.

Martin DeWitt

Martin DeWitt, BA 1970 and MA 1976, has retired as the founding director and curator of the Fine Art Museum at Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC and as of January 2011, he is a full-time artist and consultant at Martin DeWitt Studio + Fine Arts Services in Duluth, MN.

After WIU, DeWitt received his master’s degree in fine art from Illinois State University in 1978. He began his career in 1980 as executive director of the Rockford Art Association in Illinois. From 1989-2003, he was director of the Tweed Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Concurrent with his arts administrative and curatorial duties as Founding Director of the Fine Art Museum, Western Carolina University (2003-2010), De Witt taught gallery and museum management practices to include the business of art, grant writing, and exhibit and collections planning and management.

Congratulations to Martin DeWitt.

"Tartan Clearing - Great Cranberry Island, Maine," Martin DeWitt

Monmouth Civic Orchestra directed by Richard Cangro

Rich Cangro is the new music director of the Monmouth Civic Orchestra, a community orchestra in Monmouth, IL.

Monmouth Civic Orchestra holiday concert poster

The ensemble played their first concert under Cangro on Tuesday, 12/20/2011 at Dahl Chapel, Monmouth College.

Rehearsals are on Monday evenings. New members are welcome, depending on section and repertoire needs. Email Dr. Cangro at RM-Cangro@wiu.edu for more information.